General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[Krugerrand]

Hard to deny the took out all the stops to get to 5000. Doesn’t mean it’s not sustainable, but process improvements are needed. Karpathy and every other exec will quit if they are working full time on GA4.

I wouldn’t deny the *concentrated* effort of it all. It’s not the first time they’ve done it, probably won’t be the last. I remind all that past all out concerted efforts resulted in Tesla going on to continue to ramp quickly and successfully.

In fact, let me point out the obvious of this effort and previous ones; the efforts were done to solve the last of the issues that had been holding them back. Getting everyone on the same page and focusing all attention, problem solving and creativity to get over the hurdle is just smart.

Anyone who can’t put their big boy/girl panties on to help the company be successful should find another place to work, including the likes of Karpathy. If the factory floor is good enough for Elon Musk, it should be good enough for everyone else. Ivory towers are for Princesses, not those who are trying to change the world.

 

[brian45011]

Trip has come up with so much over the top nonsense repeatedly that he's become a joke to those who know better. That does not deserve celebration. He was not particularly effective in this debate.

At least he didn't start to whimper like Ross.

 

[mrdoubleb]

"And weekend shifts were mandatory."

Fremont runs 24/7


"Disruption of the Model S and X lines could threaten Tesla’s target of building 100,000 of those vehicles in 2018. Tesla built 49,489 of those cars in the first half of this year."

It will be extremely difficult to make up 511 Gen II cars over six months.

Gee, I wounder if all the anti-Tesla quotes came from the two dozen or so UAW plants saying a week ago that only ~200 or so Model 3s were being produced per shift.

I swear this must be the same 3 employees the NY Times article quoted last Saturday. They said the same things - but at least that paper had the decency to point out all 3 were trying to unionize the factory on behalf of the UAW.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

At least he didn't start to whimper like Ross.

Funny. But I agree with JRP3. Trip's not much of a TSLA asset. Ross Gerber is much better: Analysts feud over Tesla production numbers

 

[lklundin]

So many deliveries!

It just occurred to me that the daily driving of about 1000 Teslas, from final assembly via QC and each to their own transporter could be a first real-world use case for FSD - it's on Tesla's own lot, so no unexpected traffic, no regulatory hindrance and plenty of Tesla staff around to monitor and intervene when something needs to be improved.

A car which is really a laptop on four wheels is just so much fun to think about.

 

[saniflash]

RE: short burn call.
What about an announcement by a mega player making a buy out offer (fake or not) to take TESLA private, at say $500 a share. Doesn't that basically put the share price at 500 overnight and send the shorts out of business?

That's also my line of reasoning. Currently, capital markets have power over TSLA because TSLA is dependent on this source of capital. Thus shorts can play their games with it.

Anything that would break this dependency on the capital market should trigger the short burn, because it would essentially reverse the power relationship in TSLA's favor.

Panasonic's announcement was already a small version of such a signal.

 

[mongo]

Anyone who can’t put their big boy/girl panties on to help the company be successful should find another place to work, including the likes of Karpathy.

Woah, is there a reason to call out Karpathy in that sentence?
He tweeted that the on line experience was a more alive one.

Spent some time at the factory last night. Felt like Alice in Wonderland, except with Wonderland as the home planet of the Transformers. I love software, but editing text files at a computer is nowhere near as viscerally overwhelming.

 

[Krugerrand]

Woah, is there a reason to call out Karpathy in that sentence?
He tweeted that the on line experience was a more alive one.

Wasn’t calling him out. Poster implied that Karpathy (and other execs - though not too many remain now, which begs the question...) would quit Tesla if he had to work on the production line beyond this one week effort. I’m saying if he thinks he’s too good to get his hands dirty, then he should quit because not a good match for Tesla’s mission. Clearly he’s not above it and sees the value in it just as Elon does.

 

[The Blue Owl]

Fremont outbound logistics lot, week of June 24th

Pffft.

They just drive the same cars in and out to give the illusion of activity. Montana and Spiegel will unmask this scam in no time.

 

[Krugerrand]

I swear this must be the same 3 employees the NY Times article quoted last Saturday. They said the same things - but at least that paper had the decency to point out all 3 were trying to unionize the factory on behalf of the UAW.

Sooooo...the UAW is encouraging employees to break NDA’s to leak information (correct or incorrect) to media, thus jeopardizing their jobs. Information they know will cause negative sentiment for the company and stock, thus jeopardizing the company. Hurt the company/get employees fired = unionization accepted by employees?!

You can not make this stuff up.

 

[dc_h]

Wasn’t calling him out. Poster implied that Karpathy (and other execs - though not too many remain now, which begs the question...) would quit Tesla if he had to work on the production line beyond this one week effort. I’m saying if he thinks he’s too good to get his hands dirty, then he should quit because not a good match for Tesla’s mission. Clearly he’s not above it and sees the value in it just as Elon does.

I pointed out that having everyone in Fremont working 12 hours a day and stopping all other work is not sustainable. I’m not a bear, I’ve been long Tesla since 30.57 a share, I just think this is really obvious. They did this back in 2012 and 2013 to get cars delivered. It’s ok, but it’s not sustainable. You don’t want a billion dollar AI guy on the line too often. I’ll bet a lot of engineering insight may come of this and perhaps they’ll realize all execs should have line training to have respect and understanding of the physical side of the business. Elon made a promise and he was gonna be damned if he didn’t keep it.
Not farting unicorn dust is not hating on Tesla. I’m proud of Tesla for making it happen. Not many leaders would have gotten the job done.

Signed, “the poster”

 

[dc_h]

Sooooo...the UAW is encouraging employees to break NDA’s to leak information (correct or incorrect) to media, thus jeopardizing their jobs. Information they know will cause negative sentiment for the company and stock, thus jeopardizing the company. Hurt the company/get employees fired = unionization accepted by employees?!

You can not make this stuff up.

I’m sure people know who they are and can count what they are costing them. Shouldn’t be hard to weed them out.

 

[brian45011]

New article by Alex Roy, from The Drive:
How the Tesla Effect Is Hurting Tesla
I'm not particularly fond of him, but I think articles like these are very important for that particular audience that like cars but are annoyed by Musk celebrity and Tesla hype, bears VS bulls, etc.
Tesla makes better cars, and makes for a better car ecosystem: this should be a main talking point everytime.

"Take a look at the Diesel smoke-stained exterior walls of every major urban center in Europe and Asia."

It's from centuries of burning wood and coal, but the narrative is compelling.

 

[Skryll]

"Take a look at the Diesel smoke-stained exterior walls of every major urban center in Europe and Asia."

It's from centuries of burning wood and coal, but the narrative is compelling.

I am not a fan of Alex's self confidence and harsh judgements against Elon and the community as a whole. But good to see a different strong opinion I guess. What I vehemently disagree with though is that he asks for autopilot to have a driver supervision system.

IMHO the main value of autopilot driver assist is delegating micromanaging to AP while being in charge on a macrolevel, being able to look more far ahead and behind, make better more focused judgement calls on how traffic is developing around us etc. The least I need is for the assistant to try to micromanage me, i.e. how well it likes my glasses, my hat or what I glance at with my eyes, impacting my ability to freely decide what to do to maximize safety and effectiveness. I don't need anything interfering with my judgement calls on safety. It can provide additional input to some degree, but it should be optional and not like AP turning itself off for the rest of the trip when exceeding 90mph.

 

[N5329K]

Sooooo...the UAW is encouraging employees to break NDA’s to leak information (correct or incorrect) to media, thus jeopardizing their jobs. Information they know will cause negative sentiment for the company and stock, thus jeopardizing the company. Hurt the company/get employees fired = unionization accepted by employees?!

You can not make this stuff up.

Because it worked out so well for them at NUMMI...
Robin

 

[Zaxxon]

And here's the chart now that BMW's numbers are out. So even if InsideEVs is off to the high side by 250 vehicles, the Model 3 has now led this segment in the US 2 months in a row. Likely won't relinquish that lead any time soon.

Edit - Note the 'sales to 50% share' number. At even 1,000 more Model 3s per week (and Tesla should easily exceed that), the Model 3 would surpass the sales of all four of those competitors combined.

 

[Krugerrand]

I pointed out that having everyone in Fremont working 12 hours a day and stopping all other work is not sustainable. I’m not a bear, I’ve been long Tesla since 30.57 a share, I just think this is really obvious. They did this back in 2012 and 2013 to get cars delivered. It’s ok, but it’s not sustainable. You don’t want a billion dollar AI guy on the line too often. I’ll bet a lot of engineering insight may come of this and perhaps they’ll realize all execs should have line training to have respect and understanding of the physical side of the business. Elon made a promise and he was gonna be damned if he didn’t keep it.
Not farting unicorn dust is not hating on Tesla. I’m proud of Tesla for making it happen. Not many leaders would have gotten the job done.

Signed, “the poster”

It’s already been pointed out that the factory runs 24/7, so clearly sustainable. Hospitals run 24/7 with doctors and nurses working 12+hr shifts for multiple days. Nobody is suggesting that a single person, other than perhaps Elon himself who seems to defy the laws of sleep, do it for week after week after week. Perhaps something called a Continental shift solves that?

There’s no negative to having high level employees get their hands dirty and experience that for a period of time, even a period beyond a single week. And clearly Andrej ‘Billion Dollar’ Karpathy sees the value. And clearly he’s a team player.

And I beg to differ on your point of farting unicorn dust. It’s a valid rating system.

 

[Krugerrand]

I’m sure people know who they are and can count what they are costing them. Shouldn’t be hard to weed them out.

Well, these leaks have been going on for a while. Are those people waiting for the Zombie Apocalypse before weeding?

 

[saniflash]

That's also my line of reasoning. Currently, capital markets have power over TSLA because TSLA is dependent on this source of capital. Thus shorts can play their games with it.

Anything that would break this dependency on the capital market should trigger the short burn, because it would essentially reverse the power relationship in TSLA's favor.

Panasonic's announcement was already a small version of such a signal.

btw, this would also give "Independence Day" an entirely new meaning

 

[Yggdrasill]

Anyone have any thoughts about what's going on with GA2? I've only seen mention of the GA3 and GA4 lines in basically every leak and announcement, like:

GA4, our new General Assembly line for Model 3, was responsible for roughly 20% of Model 3s produced last week, with quality from that line being as good as our regular GA3 line. We expect that GA3 alone can reach a production rate of 5,000 Model 3s per week soon, but GA4 helped to get us there faster and will also help to exceed that rate.

I'm assuming GA1 is Model S/X, but why is there no mention of GA2 anywhere?

My best speculation is that the GA2 line is unfinished/abandoned/idle. Maybe it was an early design of the production line, and it didn't work as intended, and then the easiest way forward was to focus on GA3 as well as install a new line in a tent. If so, that at least indicates that the factory should be able to do 10k/wk without the tent, once GA2 is updated to the latest and greatest design. But also suggests that a significant amount of capex spent on Model 3 production equipment was wasted.